Do I recite a blessing before taking oral medication?

If the medicine has a good taste, such as flavored chewable pills,1 recite the shehakol blessing.2 Flavorless medicine, such as pills that you swallow, do not require a blessing—but we do say a prayer that the medicine should be efficacious:

No blessing is recited on water that you drink to swallow down the pill. If you are swallowing it down with a beverage other than water, then you do recite the appropriate blessing on that beverage. (Tip: recite the blessing, take a sip, swallow the pill and then drink it down with the rest of the beverage.)